Well, River and I survived our first round of Rally Advanced. This level is off-leash and a big step up in skill level from Rally Novice. We had to do a stand and walk around, pivots, and jumps, among other craziness.

Our first run was awesome, except for a some errors on my part. A 10 pt deduction for me failing to wait for River to sit at the end of one exercise... another 10pts because we weren't prepared for the pivot. Honestly, if the day 2 judge had been there, that one would have been fine; she was allowing a lot of foot movement in the pivot, but not this lady. And one pt for my hesitation at the jump. See? ALL MY FAULT. But despite the low score, it was an amazing run, she was glued to my side and working like a champ. Only 3 qualifications in our group, so we ended up with 2nd place, and a stuffed cheeseburger.

Day 2... Day 2 was rough. I worked our collective arse off trying to nail the pivots. By the time we entered the ring at about 5:15, she was so tired she wouldn't do anything for me; and then my stepdaughter stood right next to the ring to video the run on her camera and River trotted off to her to go say hi. BUT! We did nail the pivot and the stand and the jump. A ton of little errors, but we eked out a second qualifying run, as well as an embarrassing 2nd place finish. This time River picked out a big fluffy cube toy.

WHEW!

"In these bodies, we will live; in these bodies we will die.Where you invest your love, you invest your life." --Marcus Mumford

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day, tomorrow doesn't look good either.
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"You didn't know of the magical powers of the break stick? It's up there with genies and Harry Potter as far as magic levels go." SisMorphine 01/07/07

She is INDEED a bit chubba. And this is after a 5lb loss!! We're working on it, slowly but surely.

And thanks, guys. All off leash. I couldn't believe we did it!!

Sunday, we had been down there off and on all day until 2pm, when we had to check out of the hotel, and then we were there pretty much full time, and we didn't enter the ring until 5:30ish. I overworked her. However, it felt way worse in the ring. I thought she was literally all over the ring, when she wasn't. She tried to visit my step daughter twice, and just didn't want to lay down. But we had a lovely stand and a decent pivot.

I was, however, very proud of Saturday, despite my errors. Watching all the other teams compete, most of them are of the crank and yank variety and they shouted at their dogs when they wandered away, and many of them have very, very sloppy cues-- a lot of unnecessary gesturing and loud commands. I kept my cues clean, and calm, and we had a good time. No shouting.

River was such a basket case when we adopted her (at 4 years old, 2 1/2 years ago) that literally my only realistic goal for her was that she could sit reasonably promptly in public, not whine *quite so loudly, and maybe not drag me on the leash-- didn't have to be loose, just not dragging me. She would whine so loud and completely lose focus the minute we opened the door. I would shove chicken and sausage and hot dogs in her face and she wouldn't take them. She was so overwhelmed with the world. And to see her now, I can't even believe I have the same dog, in such a short time. She's just awesome.

"In these bodies, we will live; in these bodies we will die.Where you invest your love, you invest your life." --Marcus Mumford

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day, tomorrow doesn't look good either.
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"You didn't know of the magical powers of the break stick? It's up there with genies and Harry Potter as far as magic levels go." SisMorphine 01/07/07